The trashing of parliamentary procedure

http://hillsofthenorth.blogspot.com/2008/05/trashing-of-parliamentary-procedure.html

[Hills of the North] 15 May 2008--Parliamentary procedure is at its core about democracy at its best: achieving in decent and orderly fashion the will of the majority while fully respecting and protecting the minority (or as one writer put it, "to give the minority a fighting chance.") There is a reason that every democratic voting organization uses a form of parliamentary procedure (in this country, usually Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised), whether it be church, or city council, or stockholders' meeting, or legislature. Those who object to parliamentary procedure, or who abuse it, are almost inevitably those who have no patience for democracy or dissent, or those who simply do not like the result that would be forthcoming when the ayes and nos aren't to their liking.

In our church we have two recent and regrettable examples of antipathy toward parliamentary procedure. The first, of course, is the Presiding Bishop, who has lawlessly decided to ignore the very basics of Robert's and the canons themselves in a whole range of actions where she can't be bothered to follow the rules, or where she worries she might not get the votes necessary to do what she wants. She has, in essence, with the apparent acquiescence of a majority of bishops, turned parliamentary procedure into a sham--something no more meaningful to them than, say, a Book of Common Prayer liturgy. This certainly reflects her anger at, disrespect for, and, some say, hatred of the minority orthodox, who after all have the temerity to do what minorities generally do--object and disagree and attempt to obstruct the majority. And in a sense her suspension of parliamentary procedure (for that is what she has done) is evidence of her own weakness, her inability to reason with those with whom she disagrees, and her intolerance of those who do not see the world exactly as she does. It is a rejection of democracy, since the rules came about by democratic vote, not by fiat. And it is with her, as with Mugabe in Zimbabwe and every other tinhorn dictator who cannot accept the norms of democratic procedure, an unequivocal admission of defeat.